Ed.
Note: This is part of a series of articles profiling a limited number of
political races where the archives of Michigan Capitol Confidential store
significant information that may be of interest to free-market inclined voters.
In each of these profiles, the article will cover only the candidates who have
compiled a vote history or other record that has been covered by this news
service since it began as a print publication in fall 2007.

This is
not to slight the candidates whose public record has not yet appeared in
MichCapCon. In some cases, voters may determine that these are the best
possible candidates in a given race. All voters are strongly encouraged to give
every candidate a serious look.

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The
purpose of this series is to tell the interesting stories that are known about
those issues that have been examined by this page over the last several years.
MichCapCon has always targeted free-market issues, not individual political
personalities. As such, these profiles should be viewed as only a small part of
the overall policy picture.

This is
not a comprehensive voter guide, not a comprehensive picture of any candidate
and certainly not an endorsement of any candidate.

For a
larger list of votes written up by MichCapCon, please see:www.MichCapCon.com/12541,
and use the search feature on the home page. Additionally, every roll call vote
for every bill considered by the Michigan Legislature since 2001 is available
at www.MichiganVotes.org.

~~~~~

Michigan's
3rd
Congressional district includes the city of Grand Rapids, most of Kent
County and all of Barry and Ionia counties. The current occupant of the office,
U.S. Rep. Vern Ehlers, R-Grand Rapids, is retiring from Congress. The district's political profile and vote
history makes it likely that the winner of the GOP primary in August will also
win the general election in November.

The
Republican primary has five candidates, two of them current state lawmakers that
have compiled a public policy record that has appeared in MichCapCon: Rep.
Justin Amash of Cascade Township and Sen. Bill Hardiman of Kentwood.

Also
running on the GOP side are the Van Andel Institute's chief administrative
officer and general counsel Steve
Heacock of Grand Rapids, private practice attorney and small business owner
Louise E. Johnson
of Grand Rapids, and Bronze Star winner and Afghanistan combat veteran Bob Overbeek of Wyoming.
The Democrat field consists of former Kent County Commissioner Paul Mayhue of Grand Rapids, and attorney Pat Miles of Grand
Rapids.

Both
Hardiman and Amash have figured into ongoing stories that have appeared in
MichCapCon recently.

Shortly
after assuming office, Amash become one of the first two lawmakers in Michigan
history to place the names and salaries of his legislative staff on the
Internet (see: www.MichCapCon.com/10863).
Several other lawmakers have since been persuaded by this example and done the
same with their staffing information. (Due to a special protection carved out
for politicians in the state's Freedom of Information Act, the state legislature
and the governor are not required to reveal this information, and the current
governor has refused to do so).

Another
path-breaking step toward government transparency taken by Amash has been his
decision to use his Facebook page to state the reason for every vote that he
takes in the Michigan House (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12826).

Hardiman's
voting record for those issues that have been written up in MichCapCon
generally reveals a lawmaker who votes with the Republican caucus - though there
have been exceptions. While this has been generally true of Amash as well, the
legislator has also shown a stronger tendency to vote against the majority of
GOP lawmakers when there is an issue where some of the Republicans have split
away.

A recent
example took place in June when a new law was approved that granted a special
tax perk for the owners of a super speedway in Michigan (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12990). Amash and
three other Republicans were amongst only a dozen legislators in the House to
vote against the special favor for the racetrack.

"It's
neither fair nor economically sound to tax working class and middle class
people, and to impose the onerous Michigan Business Tax on small businesses, to
pay for massive subsidies to special interests," wrote Amash on Facebook,
explaining his opposition.

Two weeks
later, the Michigan Senate overwhelmingly approved the same bill on a vote of 36-1
and sent it to the governor for her signature. The lone dissenting vote was a Republican, but
Hardiman voted with the majority in favor of the special tax deal.

Earlier
this spring, both Hardiman and Amash bucked their party and a majority of the
legislature to oppose a bill that stripped away some ownership rights from stockholders
of a publicly-traded insurance company in Michigan (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12780). The chief purpose of the new law is to
deliberately make it harder for the owners of the insurance company to sell
their shares to a willing buyer. Amash was one of just 15 Republicans to oppose
the bill in the House, and Hardiman was one of just six Republicans to oppose
the bill in the Senate. (Nine House Democrats and 2 Senate Democrats also
opposed the bill).

Last
year, another law passed to increase subsidies for batteries used in small
electric vehicles. MichCapCon noted in April that this policy was very similar
to a "free golf cart" program then being exposed by Fox Business Network
correspondent John Stossel (see: www.MichCapCon.com/12632).
Amash was one of just four Republicans in the Michigan House to vote against increasing
the number of companies getting the battery subsidy (two Democrats also voted "no").

Hardiman
voted with the majority in the Michigan Senate, in favor of increasing the
number of companies getting the subsidy.

Two
similar votes in 2009 regarding subsidies for electric cars produced largely identical
results: the two lawmakers voting opposite one another with Amash siding with
the small minority that opposed the subsidies (see: www.MichCapCon.com/10703).

During
last year's state budget battle, a strange pair of votes took place regarding a
proposed modest 3 percent reduction to K-12 public school funding (see: www.MichCapCon.com/11464). In the
Michigan Senate, the entire Republican majority was willing to vote in favor of
making the cut so as to balance the budget without a tax increase, and Hardiman
voted with the majority to make the cut.

In the
Michigan House, several attempts were made to approve the same cut. Each one
failed, though many Republicans indicated a willingness to support the cut if a
majority could be rounded up to do so. In the end, because this majority did
not exist, nearly every Republican was unwilling to go on record casting a vote
to make the 3 percent reduction.

But
there were two exceptions: Amash and Rep. Tom McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, each
cast votes in favor of the cut so as to demonstrate their support for the
decision of the Senate GOP to cast a tough vote to restrain the size of
government.

The
budget fight that took place at the end of 2007 resulted in a $1.4 billion tax
hikes. Hardiman, like most GOP in the Legislature, voted against the tax hikes.
When it came time to spend these tax hikes, Hardiman - like the vast majority
of Senate Republicans - voted to support budgets that spent more than $1.4
billion above the previous year (see: www.MichCapCon.com/9270).

For
comparison: A half-dozen GOP lawmakers in the House voted against many of those
budgets, and kept their spending increases well under $100 million for that
year, despite the projected large influx of new revenue following the tax increase.
(Amash was not yet a member of the Legislature during this period in 2007).

~~~~~

For a
complete list of profiles, please see the July 2010 heading for the Michigan
Capitol Confidential Vote History page: www.MichCapCon.com/12541.

Obamacare repeal-and-replace is underway, and regardless of whether it passes or fails big, changes are coming for Michigan’s medical services and insurance industry, and the state’s social welfare system, especially Medicaid.

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